Projects like this are hard for me. On the one hand, I love all of the things we did to this FJ40. Among the mechanical things: fuel injection, H55F 5 speed, rear disc brakes, Dakota Digital instrumentation, and a lot of mechanical repair. Because of the 5 speed, we also did our signature wheelbase extension. But that’s where the “hate” part comes in. The wheelbase extension moves us into the body realm—and that’s where it gets complicated.
Now first, I want to be sure to point out that I don’t really hate the project or any of the work we did. In fact, I love it! We produced a very presentable and drivable FJ40 that is sure to turn heads everywhere it goes. But that’s the problem. That wheelbase extension was a can of worms. It involves moving the wheel well back in the quarter panel and refinishing that area. But on this Land Cruiser, the rear sill was rusty too. So while we were in the area, we fixed that too, and the rockers, and the running boards, and while we were at it, we fixed the dash where someone hacked it up for the old gauges. Before you know it, we had repainted almost half the vehicle.
But only half the vehicle, and that’s where the problem is. We don’t like to do partial restorations. In this situation it was exactly the right thing to do, and it often is, but the risk is that later someone will see the rig and think that it was one of our total restorations. That’s a problem because this rig isn’t perfect. The rest of the paint that we didn’t do is decent, but flawed. There are unfinished areas and shortcuts in parts and workmanship that we would’ve never taken. If someone with a keen eye for details spots this rig somewhere, they might think that we restored the entire vehicle—and not all of it very well. That would be bad for our brand.
That’s why we’re spending so much time on this short-term section. This is where we get to establish the record about what we did and what we didn’t do on the short-term, non-restoration Land Cruiser projects that we work on. It’s likely that only a few people will ever even see this, but it makes me feel better about it. And we love the Land Cruiser that we built for this client.